"Security in Afghanistan
is worse than ever. According to the United Nations Assistance
Mission in Afghanistan, civilian casualties in the country hit
a record-high 11,000 in 2015. More than 3,500 civilians died,
including an unprecedented number of children??one in four
casualties over the past year was a child.

Amidst such violence
and death, the EU has somehow come to a decision that Afghanistan
is a safe country to which asylum seekers will be returned. As
European governments and international decision-makers gather
for the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan on October 5th, we
wish to make a special news report on Afghan refugees and answer
why they are really here.

Afghans make up the
second largest group of migrants arriving in Europe, with 196,170
applying for asylum last year..

Politicians claim that
Afghans coming to Europe are job-seekers looking for a better
life. The reality is much more complex. Afghanistan is still
one of the poorest and most dangerous countries in the world.
As long as Afghanistan lacks the systems in place to guarantee
protection, people should not be sent back there. The EUs
obligation to protect and promote human rights does not stop
at its borders.."

Refugee flows in Greece,
October 03, 2016

New arrivals: 71: Lesvos
17, Samos 25 and Chios 29.

Serbian president warns
the EU, announces possible border closure

"Serbian president
Tomislav Nikolic announced today that Serbia will close its borders
if EU countries continue to reject the refugees. We need
to close the border to migrants, because they didnt want
to stay here in the first place. Europe needs to solve this problem.
If other countries close their borders, we need to do the same
in order to avoid having so many people stranded in our country.
Since the EU is not angered by Hungarian actions, Im sure
they will have no problem with Serbia in case of the border closure,
he told journalists. He added that he does not understand how
Serbia is the first country along the Balkan Route to register
refugees, as if they fell from the sky.

"Belgrade says
it will not erect wire border fence but will deploy army to seal
off borders with Macedonia and Bulgaria.

.Hundreds of refugees
stranded in Serbia have begun walking from Belgrade towards the
border with Hungary to protest against its closure for most people
trying to reach the European Union.

More than 6,000 people
remain stuck in Serbia following Hungarys introduction
this summer of strict limits on the number of refugees allowed
to cross into the EU-member country and reinforced a razorwire
border fence with heavy patrols."

"The Italian coastguard
has co-ordinated the rescue of more than 5,600 migrants, in one
of the biggest operations in a single day.

The migrants had set
off from the Libyan coast in nearly 40 boats.

One migrant is reported
to have died and several others were airlifted for medical treatment.
According to the International Organization for Migration, some
132,000 migrants have arrived in Italy this year. "

"On the one-year
anniversary of the EU plan to relocate 160,000 asylum seekers
from Greece and Italy, the first countries of arrival, the scheme
must be judged a farce.

First, the EU cut the
number by a third. Then, in the year since the plan was approved,
it moved just 5,821 people to other member states.

While the relocation
requirement is legally binding on EU member states, some countries
are flouting EU decision-making rules and shirking their responsibilities.

Some have contributed
fairly but others, it would seem, are either actively bucking
the programme or passively offering little or nothing in the
hope the issue will to go away or that the asylum seekers will
end up elsewhere.

Despite an European
Commission press statement touting significant progress
in relocating asylum seekers from Italy and Greece, prime minister
Robert Fico of Slovakia said just a few days ago that the idea
of migration quotas was politically finished. "

"Education Minister Nikos Filis
on Monday brushed aside reactions from local communities in several
parts of Greece to refugee children attending public schools,
while putting off any debate on planned changes to religious
classes in schools until after the end of the academic year.

The state will not put rights
issues up for discussion, Filis told state broadcaster
ERT on Monday."

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